


Let It Be

by A_Starry_Night



Series: Part of Being Human [2]
Category: Broadchurch, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-06-12 12:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15339810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Starry_Night/pseuds/A_Starry_Night
Summary: Continuation of 'Everybody Wants To Rule the World'. There's a note in Beth Latimer's pocket. She doesn't know how it got there, she doesn't really know who it's from, but by opening it she begins a chain reaction that pulls her into the path of aliens and time travel, and into a situation that can only be solved successfully when the past is forgiven.The past, however, never seems to stay that way. Not when it comes to Time Lords.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the beginning of Part II, which I hope you all enjoy. I don't think it'll be as long as EWTRtW, but it's still extremely important in setting up for Part III (which I have started writing already). Be prepared for a lot of insanity, time travel, and of course Jack being flirty. Because it's Captain Jack Harkness, and he just doesn't know when to quit.

The air itself was vibrating.

That in and of itself was startling enough, as the space this air occupied was in the middle of the detention center of Wessex's prison. What was even more so was the fact that no one-- not the guards, nor even the inmates-- even began to realize that something was happening. Constable Brian McBride was making his rounds down the corridors and paused where he stood when hearing a strange wheezing sound, unsure what could cause something like that. But just as he was preparing to walk around the corner of the hall he suddenly had the thought that it was more important to turn around and go back the way he came.

If Constable McBride had turned that corner he would have seen a large blue police box materialize out of nowhere, its wheezing and groaning signifying the arrival of one of the most unique people in the known universe. The police box had barely finished settling before the door was swung open and a grey-haired man with hawkish eyes and severe eyebrows peered around into view.

He smiled, looking almost terrifyingly devious. "Use the psychic paper," he scoffed. "Yeah, right." He looked around to make sure that he and his box were alone and then made his way out through the doorway.

"I don't know if this is a good idea, Doctor," a timid voice spoke from inside the box.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Of course you don't," he replied bitingly, "because you never do, Nardole. How are you supposed to live if you don't take risks now and again?" He began walking onward, not even bothering to look behind him. "Stay in the Tardis if you want. I'm going to meet this Joe Miller."

The chameleon circuit on the Tardis was working quite well, and the Doctor was unafraid of potential witnesses. The cameras overlooking the corridors and jail cells were being quietly overwritten with his sonic so that they wouldn't pick up his presence. He knew exactly where he needed to go. He heard a quiet huff from behind him and then Nardole's footsteps followed behind him, sounding distinctly irritated.

The cell he was looking for was on the far right corner of the building, its heavy metal door locked tight. Through the small glass window he spied a small, bald-headed man sitting on the bed staring at nothing, his trembling hands twined together as he leaned forward. 

The sonic took care of the locks on the door; a quick deft twist of his fingers and the alarm announcing a breach of security was taken care of before it had the chance to signal anybody. 

"Joe Miller?"

The man moved from the bed, his blue eyes widening with fear as he backed away. "Wha--? Who are you? What're you doing here?" His voice was rough with little use and it trembled just the smallest bit, but it was telling enough that the Doctor nearly scoffed.

"Come now, Mr. Miller, if I wanted you dead I certainly wouldn't need to break into this tiny little room to do it. So stand up straight." He moved into the room and swung the door shut behind him, knowing that Nardole would keep a look out.

"What do you want?"

There. At least the trembling to his tone was gone. The silly man was trying to sound intimidating, but the Doctor was not the least bit frightened. He stood tall and straight for a long moment, his hands clasped in front of him like a stern school professor-- and then he moved forward in one fluid motion, knowing that it would unnerve his audience. "I want you," he said quietly, reasonably, "to plead guilty to killing Daniel Latimer."

Joe's mouth worked, what little color remaining in his skin draining away. "Why should I?" he finally managed to demand. 

The Doctor was still advancing; he smiled in response but it was not a nice one. "Because tomorrow morning there is going to be a plea hearing," he responded all the while with that quiet reasonable tone, "and there will be a family sitting there who needs to hear it in order to find some sort of closure."

Joe was backing away from him steadily, almost working himself into a corner in his desire to escape the Doctor's reach. "They don't have sufficient proof that I did it," he protested. "They never did. They never would've solved the case if I hadn't handed the phone in!"

The Doctor highly doubted that. He had seen enough of Alec's memories when he'd been in the latter's mind that he knew that Alec had been close to cracking the case wide open on his own. The only reason why he hadn't gone and arrested Joe Miller on the spot when he received confirmation for his suspicions was because he hadn't wanted Ellie there when he did it.

He didn't bother trying to explain that to this man, though-- he had no wish to implicate either Alec or Ellie in this visit just in case it didn't sufficiently frighten him. "Just because you think there isn't evidence doesn't make your actions untrue. Danny will still be dead. His parents are still without their child. And it was your hands that murdered him. And you want to know something, Mr. Miller?" Joe had gone as far as he could; the Doctor leaned in very close, close enough he could see the way the human's pupils dilated in fear. His voice was a harsh whisper as he continued, allowing the barest hint of the Oncoming Storm to show through. "If there's one thing I hate it's murderers."

"I didn't mean to!" the pathetic man squeaked, looking desperate and frightened. "I only wanted him to love me! He would've gone to Mark and Beth, he would've painted the wrong picture about us. I didn't want to kill him!"

God, how had Ellie managed to stay with this man for so long? But of course he was a very fine actor; Joe Miller would have found it easy to play the dutiful loving husband to a tee in order to keep her by his side. The Doctor knew a master manipulator when he saw one-- he stared at one in the mirror every morning, after all. But when faced with the absolute bare bald-faced truth, humans had the rather annoying-- but sometimes helpful-- habit of crumbling beneath the weight of stripped away lies. 

"But you did. And now you're too much of a coward to take responsibility."

"They'll kill me in jail. You don't understand--"

The Doctor laughed, low and biting. Joe flinched away. "Don't I?" He straightened up again, looking down at the man quivering in the corner. "I think it's better to be kind, Mr. Miller. In this universe there isn't enough of that. But in this case I don't think I'd have it in me to be kind. If you think that a prison cell here would be bad, just imagine what could happen if you plead not guilty tomorrow. And I will come back, and I'll make sure you pay for that response for the rest of eternity. Which, as just a point of interest, I can do."

His voice hadn't changed in either pitch or tone until those last three words, which were accompanied by a genial smile. It made him the perfect image of danger; this was the sight that made Daleks pause and so long ago sent a shiver down the Family of Blood's spines.

Joe looked like he was going to keel over realizing that what he had just heard was not an idle threat; whatever else, the Doctor thought, most humans had a tenacious streak of self-preservation.

"So the question you have to ask yourself, Mr. Miller," he continued after a long moment, "is whether you find the idea of prison better, or if you want me to come back to visit you." He straightened up and turned back to the door.

"Did Ellie send you to try and bully me into confessing?"

There it was, the stubbornness. The child within Joe Miller was bellowing the unfairness of his situation and automatically lashing out and blaming the closest people to him. The Doctor nearly laughed at the idea; of course it wasn't Ellie. It wasn't even Alec who had encouraged him.

"I have no idea of who you're talking about, Mr. Miller. I need no one to tell me what to do anyway-- there is no higher authority than me. Good day to you. Do let me know how the trial goes tomorrow."

Nardole was waiting impatiently by the door, looking worried. "I don't like this, sir," he said. "How do you know that this man is going to plead guilty at the trial, even with your threats?"

"Make a threat dour enough and anyone will believe it, Nardole. Or haven't you figured that out yet?"

~/~/~/~/~

Joe Miller pleaded guilty. 

Sitting in the gallery with every muscle tense where she sat, Beth Latimer let out the breath held in her lungs in one large sigh of relief. She could feel Mark's fingers digging painfully into her own but that was okay because she felt like she was suddenly untethered and floating free and only his contact kept her grounded. The courtroom, seeming so small just moments ago now appeared to her like the entire world.

Her little boy finally had some sort of justice. It would never be enough for her but just hearing him admit to his actions allowed her to breathe a little easier. 

She followed Mark out of the room, her fingers still entiwined with his, allowing him to lead her onwards. Abruptly Beth was feeling lost-- she had been wanting her son's killer to be sentenced, and he was.

So what was she going to do now? 

her worries were interrupted when a man, walking along hurriedly, accidentally ran into Beth, knocking her arm and her stomach. Trying to steady herself before she fell over she grabbed onto Mark's arm and dimly heard her husband's call.

"Hey, watch it there, mate!" 

But the man had gone, disappearing into the crowd surrounding them. Beth hadn't even truly seen him, catching a glimpse of dark clothes and grey hair, but she was sure that he was probably a right bastard with the way he hadn't even turned around to see if he had hurt anyone. 

Mark was shaking his head. "Can't believe people these days," he was saying irritably, scowling. His hands were soft and gentle against her skin, one bracing her back as they continued on their way. His blue eyes were scanning her worriedly. Being nearly nine months pregnant, Beth didn't need any unfortunate accidents, but she merely shook her head.

"We're fine, Mark. Stop worryin'."

"He didn't even seem to notice you were there!" Their daughter Chloe was not as easy to persuade that everything was all right, her dimunitve stature seeming to grow several inches in her indignation. Beth knew that it was their worry for her and the baby that were making both of them to react this way but she found it bothersome.

"Let's not think about that man, alright?" she told both of them, climbing into the passenger seat of their car. "Today we're supposed to be thinkin' about Danny. Whoever he was, he wasn't important."

And she would have believed herself if only she hadn't realized that there was something in her pocket that hadn't been there before. She had to wait until they were back home in Broadchurch before she could manage to slip it out into view. Setting her purse on the kitchen counter top, hearing Chloe and Mark discuss what they could do for lunch to celebrate, she held up what appeared to be a note folded neatly in quarters. As she unfolded it uncertainly, her stomach suddenly flipping anxiously, movement from outside of the window caused her to look up.

The tall, thin figure walking across the field was one she recognized very well; during the investigation into Danny's murder DI Hardy had been a regular visitor to her household, letting them know of updates and anything that could have changed in the case. He had been he who had informed them of Danny's death, and it had been he who had told them weeks later who it was who had been responsible for it.

She hadn't seen him more than a few times since the close of the case, and even then it had always been in the last few months now spying him walking across the grassy field to Ellie Miller's house. 

Beth hadn't seen reason to speak to or contact Ellie since Joe was arrested; the betrayal of her closest friend's husband was still too raw to process, and she still didn't understand how Ellie hadn't seen any sign of what was happening between Joe and Danny. It made her more than angry enough to ignore the pain in Ellie's eyes and instead focus on the blame.

What she didn't quite understand was the DI's relationship with Ellie was. She remembered her old friend complaining sometimes about how much of an arse Hardy was, how difficult it was to even hear a morning greeting from him on a good day, and God help you if you met him on a bad one. But watching him now Beth wondered. 

The two detectives had disappeared for almost a week awhile back. It had been the talk of the town when it initially happened. First Steve Connelly's body was found, then an American man had been seen running around during the investigation. The docks down by the shore had been partially destroyed and then both Hardy and Ellie had disappeared.

Rumors had begun by the second day. The police had tried to cover up their absences by saying they had left for an out-of-town request for new eyes on a case, but the townspeople had been more than ready to come up with their own explanations. Some said that they had been killed by whoever it was by who had also murdered Connelly; still others stated it had to be because they had left town to continue a mad affair that had started all the way back to Danny's case.

Whatever it was, a week had gone by and then suddenly they were seen walking down the main road of Broadchurch together. The American man, dressed in a World War II coat, had bade them goodbye and kissed Ellie on the cheek as a farewell and then he'd gone just as quickly as he'd shown up.

That was when things had started to change. That was when Beth had occasionally seen the DI making his way to Ellie's house, and sometimes his visits ranged from a few minutes to a few hours. But he always headed back out again by the field, and his walk was quicker and livelier for every visit it seemed.

She leaned more towards the affair idea herself. Maybe not during Danny's case, unless Ellie really was that good of an actress, but Beth couldn't imagine what else it could possibly be. 

The paper in her hands crinkled as she finished opening it, still watching as Hardy disappeared around the corner of the Millers' fence. As Mark passed by the doorway, having decided he was going to grill some steaks and hot dogs, she looked down at the note and froze. The writing was unfamiliar, bold and to the point, and written there were merely five words and a phone number:

_Call me. I'm the Doctor._


	2. Chapter 2

_Two Years Later_

~/~/~/~/~

_Tiptoe through the garden, by the garden of the willow tree..._

"Bloody _hell_ , Miller." Disgruntled and still half-asleep Alec raised his head from the pillow and glared at the source of the noise. The small radio that served as Ellie's alarm clock in the mornings was too far away to be able to turn off without leaving the bed, and he didn't want to risk throwing something at it and accidentally breaking something else.

_And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight, will you pardon me?_

Sighing, knowing that the morning was well and truly beginning, he dragged himself out from underneath the coverlet and stood.

_And tiptoe through the tulips with m--_

Tiny Tim's unique timbre still seemed to echo in Alec's ears even after he turned off the radio off-- and then unplugged it for good measure. Slipping a shirt on he made his way down the stairs and padded quietly into the kitchen.

Ellie smiled at him from where she was pouring a cup of tea by the sink. "Morning!" she chirped, very much wide awake and cheerful. 

He accepted the cuppa when she handed it over and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm going to throw that radio into the time vortex," he warned her, and her smile only widened. 

"I'm glad you liked it so much," she retorted, setting the kettle down on the stove. She was already dressed and ready to leave for work but she sat beside him at the table for the few more minutes she had. "Where are you going to be today? Gonna stop by the station later?"

He shook his head. He remembered that the Doctor had always liked his tea sweet (very sweet) but he himself drank it like Donna did, without anything in it besides a spoonful of sugar. "I'll be in the shed," he said simply, knowing she knew what he meant.

"Morning, Tom," Ellie said, her attention turning to her eldest son. His hair was a mess and he still looked mostly asleep, but he grinned at her greeting and managed to return a greeting.

"Morning, Mum. Alec."

It had been the most difficult thing initially when they first came back from their days with the Doctor, explaining it to Tom. He was twelve and both of the detectives knew he was old enough to understand how to keep a secret, but it taken them several months to figure out a way to explain to him what had happened. But they couldn't explain away the way things had changed between them, or the way Ellie seemed to view the world differently, or that the both of them occasionally had to leave for trips to Torchwood. So Ellie had solved their problem by quite simply sitting him down in the living room and explaining everything. 

"Aliens exist, and you met one of them?" was his first question, which took her aback.

"Several, actually," she responded without thinking. 

"And the DI? He's half alien?"

Dear God, what had she let herself into? Again Ellie had to stop herself from delving into the terrifyingly complex physicality that was Alec's history. It seemed so strange when Tom said it aloud. "Yes. I'm sorry, sweetheart, I shouldn't have told you that, if it scares you--"

"Why would it scare me? I think it's cool."

And abruptly she wanted to laugh. Only children. It had been Tom's curiosity for time travel and the aliens that his mother had desribed to him that initially made him willing to put up with Alec's frequent visits; but soon Ellie came across the two of them having steady conversations and discussing what latest theories there were on time travel and how likely it was that quantum physics actually worked. The information that Alec retained from the Doctor was astounding, and Ellie could never quite believe how much he actually seemed to recall. 

Fred was another matter. They were all very careful to keep all of it secret from the boy until he grew old enough to understand the importance of not telling strangers about it all. Ellie would tell him someday but it would be a long way off before she did.

But for now they were all comfortable in their respective dynamics, and Ellie could breathe a little easier knowing that her eldest and Alec had grown closer throughout the last two years. 

She finished her tea and stood. "I've got to get going, I'll be late otherwise." She hurried to put the cup in the sink and kissed Alec goodbye, ruffled Tom's hair as he came back from the bathroom, and then the door closed behind her. Grinning slightly to himself Alec watched the boy sit down at the table with a bowl and a box of cereal. There had been a time even three years ago that he had hated the idea of anything domestic, courtesy of the Doctor in his head, but this small family was winning him over. 

It was close to five hours later that he heard his phone ringing. Seeing the number he stood and answered it. "What?"

"Now, is that any way to greet a friend?"

Alec rolled his eyes. "What's wrong, Jack?"

He heard Jack Harkness's sigh over the phone. "Rift activity is up again. Gwen's picking up readings of something moving in the underground sewers. Buildings are starting to show damage. We need to get out there and see what it is. You busy?"

"You know, you should start paying me for all these trips to Cardiff."

"Please," Jack scoffed. "It'll take you two seconds to get here. And you don't even need money for a car, so don't try to pull that one on me."

"Ellie's still at work. Let me go and rescue her from the humans and we'll be over."

He heard Jack's snort of amusement. "You're human too, you know," he reminded him. 

"We'll see you later."

~/~/~/~/~

Beth left for her run of the day. It was her ritual, the thing that kept her life steady and familiar, and of course it helped that it kept her in shape. The sound of the sea crashing along the coast was her constant companion as her shoes dug into the dirt and grass as she headed for the top of the cliffs, feeling the need for more of a workout. Chloe was back at the house watching over Lizzie while Mark was at work, but Beth knew her daughter could handle watching over her younger sister. It would be Lizzie's second birthday before long, and they needed to discuss plans for a party.

Her thoughts were on auto-pilot, as were her legs, so she wasn't aware of how far she was going before she paused. When she finally did pause for a breather she realized that she was on the far side of the cliffs already, far from the town. Up near Briar Cliff.

She felt a shudder down her spine at the realization. She never traveled up that way anymore, hating to be reminded overtly of what had happened there three years ago, but today she fought with herself. The small building in which her Danny had died was in view, innocent and plain among the tall waving grass, and she hated it. 

She approached it cautiously and saw when she was close enough that it hadn't been visited in a very long time. Dust sat in the windowsills and the panel siding was faded and in need of another coat of paint. Briefly she wondered how long the building had been standing empty now, and she tried the door. To her surprise it swung open easily. 

She paused. It was trespassing to go in, but her curiosity was too great to ignore. Maybe someone had snuck in and was living in here secretly? She stepped through the doorway and into the kitchen before she could second guess her thoughts and looked around. Everything sat in a thick layer of dust, and there were no footprints to be seen on the floor. The air was musty. 

Her spine was tingling. This was where Danny died. This was where Joe Miller had wrapped his hands around her little boy's throat and choked the life out of him. She stifled a sudden sob and pressed the palm of her left hand to her mouth.

And then the door was slammed shut. 

Beth swept around, wide-eyed and startled, and as she did so a voice spoke up from behind her. 

" _Humans_. Such curious creatures."

There was a sharp crack, the back of her head flared with pain, and then her world went black.

~/~/~/~/~

When she woke up, her head was aching and she couldn't quite focus her eyes. Her surroundings were dark, and for a moment she was terrified that maybe her eyesight had been affected, but then she realized that about six feet above her head there was the grey brick of a wall or ceiling. Shivering, her skin damp and cold, she struggled up into a sitting position and tried to understand where she was. 

It was a tunnel of some kind. Faint sunlight shone through access doors at various intervals, giving her enough light to see by, but it was a very closed tunnel, and extending farther than she could clearly see. Water dripped lazily into pools by her feet and she could smell the sweet decay of sewage from farther away.

Where was she?

"Hello?" she called. She thought maybe she heard footsteps but in this circumstance the sounds could travel in odd ways. Keeping a hand on the wall she stood, wanting some confirmation of human company.

"Is anyone there?"

And then she heard a growl. 

It didn't sound particularly close but it was deep, and it warned her that it was coming closer. Her breath catching in her throat she started to back away, looking for a ladder or something she could climb up, but she didn't see anything. Her footsteps were loud in the echoing silence, and another growl from whatever was in the tunnels with her let her know that her voice had alerted it. 

It was hunting her.

Her head was still spinning but her body automatically began to move, shifting her weight to be as soundless as possible. What the hell was down here that could make a sound like that? She thought she saw the shadows shift, saw the light bend, but instinct made her turn and run. It seemed she ran forever trying to find some way to climb outside, to even find where outside was, and all the while the thing was still following her. 

An access ladder caught her attention and desperately she grabbed hold of the rungs to pull herself up; not a moment too soon, either, because as she climbed up several feet and reached up to move aside the door, praying it wouldn't be rusted shut, the air seemed to shift and suddenly there was a roar that shook the tunnel itself. Beth's ears were ringing and she felt her left one pop as if she were in an airplane, but she was in luck because bracing her shoulder she was able to push the door up and outwards, and a wave of fresher air hit her face. 

"What the--? Jack, we've got a live one!"

The woman's voice made Beth very nearly fall off the ladder again, unprepared to find herself in another's company, and she dragged herself up the rest of the way to find a gun suddenly leveled at her face.

"Duck!" Again she acted purely on instinct, and she did as ordered just in time to miss the pistol firing over her head and into the closing access door. Dimly she heard another screech of pain, and the heavy thud of something hitting the tunnel floor beneath the floor of the building, and then her arm was grabbed and she was forcefully hauled away. The woman dragging her was taller than Beth was, dressed in a black leather jacket with large eyes and dark dark hair, and right now she was peering at Beth with a mix of disbelief and suspicion.

"What were you doing down there? I just checked this area of tunnel ten minutes ago, and there was no human life readings besides mine and my friends'."

"Let go of me!" She ripped her arm from the woman's grip. Behind them the access door shuddered.

Her company's attention turned to it briefly, her expression tight with nervousness and preparation. "C'mon, we'll catch up with the others-- run!" And the access door flew upwards and hit the floor with another deafening clatter, barely missing both of them as they moved.

It was what appeared to be a warehouse that Beth had managed to climb up into, abandoned and decrepit, its tall shelving draped with dirty plastic sheets. The ground shuddered as another roar echoed in the air, and Beth slipped on the corner of one of the shelves. 

"Gwen!"

The shout-- and the familiar voice along with it-- made Beth's head snap up, her mouth falling open as another woman rounded another corner, rushing towards them. The gait, the flyaway curls, it was certainly her-- Ellie Miller. And right now she was holding what also appeared to be a gun, her dark coat buttoned up to her throat and her dark eyes careful as she approached. "Ellie, we found it, it's beneath us in the sewers-- come and help me, we've got a civilian."

"What the hell do you mean a civilian-- good God, _Beth_?" Ellie stopped in her tracks, her expression slipping into bafflement and amazement.

Beth could only stare back, utterly confused and still trying to understand what the hell had happened to the world--

And then there was a sudden explosion from around the corner-- a brilliant flare of orange and yellow that washed over them all-- something roared in pain, and suddenly two men careened into view. One-- the captain, Beth realized with a nasty shock, the one who had come to Broadchurch years ago-- was also holding a large gun and a wicked-looking knife, his World War II trench coat flying behind him.

"Go, Ell!" he shouted, tunring to face the corner. "Gwen, you provide cover fire for us if this thing turns nasty. Alec--" 

"Already done, Harkness." The captain's companion barely slowed down as he whisked by them, and suddenly Beth found herself running when her hand was grasped and he led them along. "C'mon, Miller! I'm not coming back for you if you fall behind."

Beth nearly tripped over her feet again, knowing that Scottish brogue anywhere, but Ellie merely rolled her eyes. "1908, Alec," she said sweetly. "Try another one, would you?"

"All out of 'em, sorry-- Jack, it's going to fire again!" As quickly as Alec had started off he was skidding to a halt and turning back to join the captain, leaving the three women standing several paces behind them both. "Thirty-five seconds, counting down..."

"Don't just stand there, you two!" Ellie yelled furiously as yet another roar shook their eardrums. She grabbed hold of Beth and started dragging her farther away. "I'm not dragging you to Martha to get patched up again."

"You always say that, Ellie," the captain said fondly; nonetheless he began to back up, away from what it was stalking them all. Even as Beth watched, however, Hardy stayed where he was. "Alec!" Jack called in exasperation.

"In a mo'." He did back up a step, but made no other attempt to move.

"What is he doing?" Beth breathed, horrified. "He's going to get himself killed!"

Ellie snorted, as if she barely registered it was Beth at her side. "Please," she scoffed. "Alec Hardy is too bloody stubborn to die."

And then the creature that had been stalking Beth sidled around the corner, growling, and she could do nothing but stare. It was unlike anything else she had ever seen before, about the size of a small dog; a bright acid green, it was covered with gleaming scales. Slitted golden eyes glared at them as it advanced.

"But-" Beth stammered. "But it's--"

"So small?" Gwen suggested. 

"Don't be fooled," Jack told her seriously. "Its sonic walls can topple walls and kill someone at close enough range."

"Is it close enough, Jack?" Ellie asked nervously. 

Jack motioned to the one still standing in front of them all. "For him, yes."

"You worry too bloody much, Harkness," Hardy snapped at him, but his attention was on the creature. "Twenty-one seconds, by the way, in case you're interested."

"Oh, I'm very interested--"

"If you finish that sentence, Jack," Ellie warned him crossly, "I'll kick you in the balls myself."

The captain flashed her a winning smile, coyness written all over his features. "Don't worry, Ellie, I'm plenty interested in you too, it's not all about Alec anyway."

"Oi!" Gwen barked, her gun up and ready to fire at the creature. "Knock it off, Jack! Focus on the directive now and do your flirting later."

"Yes, ma'am." And barely had he finished speaking than Alec jumped backwards and the creature sprang at the same time-- and the latter jumped directly into a second explosion that erupted from the shelving beside it. They all cringed backwards from the force of the blast, they heard one last shriek of pain, and then silence fell so quickly it was almost frightening. "Is it later enough now?"

"No, you knob," Ellie told him shortly.. "We've got a problem, Jack, in case you haven't noticed! "

"Why? What's the problem? The alien's taken care of, no one was hurt and-- oh. Wait. Uh, did we start out with five people on this trip? 'Cos I don't think we did."

"'Course we didn't," Alec retorted, shooting him a glare as he approached their circle. "Keep up, Harkness, your ape is showing."

"Oi," Ellie warned him. "Rudeness. Remember you're part ape too."

"Focus," Gwen said in a tone said that said she wanted to smack them all upside the head.

Beth spoke before any of them had a chance to. "What the _hell_ did you do to me?"


	3. Chapter 3

"What have you done now, Mister? Your clothes are singed, and so are Jack's-- and you've got a stranger with you. Do I want to know?"

Martha Jones was a formidable woman on any given day; she wouldn't have been able to travel the world for a year to defeat the Master if she wasn't. But right now, standing with crossed arms and a finely arched brow, she was downright intimidating as she waited for Alec to answer.

"Probably not," was his response, "which is the best answer I can give you 'cos I haven't got the foggiest." It was clear that he meant to reply to her last question and nothing else, and clearly Martha understood that because she merely shook her head with a sigh and didn't pursue it.

"I've already told them that you shouldn't check over either of them," Ellie commented as she sat down, "seeing as neither of them seemed concerned with safety this time around." The five of them had traveled through several streets and hopped a subway to reach what Jack had explained was the rebuilt Torchwood Hub, and it was mainly Gwen who kept an eye on Beth. Ellie practically shied away from the latter's attention, wanting nothing more than to hide from her former friend's acid fury; and Alec had quietly inserted himself between their lines of sight, saying without words of who it was he was defending. The two others of the Torchwood team needed no explanation for the situation-- Beth's anger and disgust where she sat was enough as she glared in Ellie's direction. 

"I would love to," Martha answered now, "but knowing Jack he'll hold it against me and slip some suggestive lie into my official paperwork."

"What, that you had a thing for a two-hearted git who traveled through time and space?" Seated beside Ellie, Jack flashed Martha his most winning smile. "What a wonderful idea, I'll have to use that one."

"For you or for her?" Alec rolled his eyes. "Dear Lord, I do not want to know what you would've thought of Chinny. Focus!" he barked when the captain opened his mouth to retort.

"Let's start with the obvious, yeah?" Martha suggested, and turned to the waiting Beth. "Who are you? How did you end up in Cardiff?"

"Beth Latimer." Her voice was steady but there was still a tremor to her hands that belied her fear. "This is all some elaborate set-up, isn't it? This is just Ellie's way of getting back at me for the past few years!"

"Miller has always respected your distance, Beth," Alec said sharply, his hackles rising. His impatience with Beth's blind fury towards Ellie had been stewing for quite some time, and he was in no mood to deal with it right now. He and Martha were the only ones who were still standing, and even the latter yielded to him as he continued on. "And right now i'm only willing to work with facts, not opinions, and so for five minutes drop your grudges and tell us what happened. _Now_."

The blunt demand did what nothing else would have. Sufficiently cowed for the moment, Beth swallowed and explained how she had stopped at the hut on Briar Cliff and discovered it unlocked.

"And you went inside?" Jack demanded incredulously. "Just like that?"

"Humans," Alec reminded him. "Sometimes you're too curious for your own good."

Beth stiffened where she sat, looking at him like she'd never seen him before. "That's what I heard, right before whoever it was knocked me out. 'Such curious creatures.' Like it was funny." 

His expression gave nothing away, but Ellie noticed his back straighten just a fraction. She'd rattled him. "Was there anything else, Beth?" When she shook her head, he bent forward again. "Anything at all. Even if you think it was nothing."

"There was no footprints. There was dust everywhere, but... there were no footprints." It took her a long moment to reply, still eyeing him up and down in budding suspicion.

"And what time did it happen?"

"I don't see why that matters--"

"Tell me, Beth. What time did this happen?"

"Alec?" Martha was looking at him with a mix of concern and worry as if she could understand where the direction of his thoughts were going. 

Beth shook her head. "I don't know. No later than eleven."

"She met up with me at about thirteen oh-three," Gwen said with a frown. "A little more than three hours later. Whoever it was made it from Broadchurch to Cardiff in two hours."

"Must own one hell of a plane," Jack remarked.

"Stop it," Martha said in his general direction, but her attention was still on Alec. "Seriously, Alec, what's the matter?"

He didn't reply immediately, his gaze still on Beth. And then with with a suddenness that was astonishing he turned away and headed for the steps. "No idea," he replied. "Probably nothing, but we'll have to wait and see. Martha, would you check Beth for injuries? Captain, with me." 

Martha's grin was rueful as she looked down. "He'll never change."

"At least he asks you to do what he wants," Gwen said, "rather than demand like he does with the rest of us."

"He feels guilty about the way he treated me when he was the Doctor," the young doctor said. "He's trying to make it up to me."

"Yeah, and you're sneaky enough to not tell him that you forgave the Doctor for that a long time ago," Ellie cut in with an amused smirk.

"What can I say? I learned from the best." Martha moved to where Beth still sat looking rather shell-shocked and held out a hand. "C'mon, Beth. I'm a doctor, I'll check your head. You said whoever it was struck you there?"

"Yeah." Unsure and out of her depth, Beth automatically took the proferred hand and stood. Together they walked out of the room they were in, leaving Gwen and Ellie to their own devices, and headed down into the lower levels of the Hub. It was cooler down here, and dimly lit, but Beth could clearly see that they were making their way past cell blocks-- and some of them were occupied. She couldn't make sense of what they were, but they were humanoid, with small eyes and no discernible mouth, and their skin was thick and leathery. "What the...? What are those things?"

"I know it's a shock," Martha said soothingly, "but you're all right. These are aliens. Literally outer space aliens, that Torchwood tracks down and keeps here until they can get them back home."

"There's no such thing as aliens," Beth automatically protested, but she was having a hard time convincing herself of that when one of the so-said aliens was glaring at them from its cell.

"Now that is a very egotistical statement," Martha said with an amused grin. "In this great big universe, are you really going to tell me that there's no chance of any extra-terrestrial life out there to see?" She palmed open the door to Torchwood's medical bay and led the way inside. It was quiet inside but Beth felt her spine shiver with fear. Anything could happen in here, anything at all, and she didn't trust Martha.

Maybe they were all aliens in here.

"I can't." Her voice came out tiny and breathless; her head still hurt from where she'd been struck, but allowing this woman to check or scan her-- or worse, inject her-- with anything was ultimately worse. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

Martha realized how skittish she was; her dark eyes were warm, and Beth wanted to trust her, but she had trusted Joe Miller for years and she knew all too well how that had turned out. "It's all right. I just want to check that you don't have a concussion, a hit over the head can be nasty if not treated--"

"No!" Beth balked, her temper flaring knowing that she wasn't being listened to. She was feeling trapped and suffocated like she had in the days following Danny's murder, and she ripped her hand from Martha's grasp. "I said no!"

"Beth, stop--!"

The closest thing Beth could see was a large white-walled chamber with a clear glass door, and without thought she turned and ran for it. She wanted protection, a barrier against all of the strangeness that had so madly descended upon her, and before Martha could step into her path she raced into it and pulled the door shut behind her.

There was a simple bed that occupied the room and she slid down the wall beside it so that she sat crouched in the corner, her hands tugging at her hair as she tries to breathe through her panic. Distantly she saw Martha going over to the wall and hitting a speaker, her worried eyes still on Beth as she spoke to someone.

She didn't know how long she sat like that before the door slid open and Gwen came in. The woman's expression was pitying as she opened the entrance to the room, and it only made Beth's anger rise. She didn't want pity. 

"Go away!" 

"I can't reach Jack, or Alec--" she heard Martha say distantly, but she was only focused on chasing away her audience. Without anything else to use, she took off one of her running shoes and threw it at Gwen's face.

_"Get away from me!"_

She didn't know what she would have done next if she wasn't listened to, but luckily Martha interceded. "Gwen, c'mon, close the door. If we try to force her to come out we could just make it worse. We'll go and find Alec and Jack, see if there's anything they can do--"

"We can't just leave her in the quarantine chamber, Martha."

"We can and we will. Now come on."

The door shut again, and Beth wondered if maybe she heard it click locked, but she wasn't interested in climbing to her feet to check. The two women left the medical bay and finally she was alone. Breathing through her panic, she ran her fingers through her hair and focused on her feet, trying to shut out everything else. 

It seemed to take no time at all before the door slid open again and she looked up to see Jack, finally divested of his long coat, walking into view and talking animatedly to someone. Hardy, she realized, who didn't seem to be quite as invested in the conversation as the captain was. He nodded curtly to whatever it was that Jack said, then brushed him off, waving him away.

The captain had barely left the room before he turned to the quarantine chamber where Beth was hiding. Swinging the door open, he looked down at her with a raised brow. "You know, hiding from your hosts can be very rude, Beth."

Her eyes widened. How--? "How did you know that I was here? Did Martha tell you?"

He leaned casually against the side of the door. "Lucky guess." It was clear that he'd known from the start where she was. His expression minutely softened. "We'll get you home, Beth."

She looked at the far wall, trying to hide behind her knees. "I don't know what's happened," she whispered shakily. "You and Ellie-- you're here in Cardiff-- and aliens exist. You hunt them..."

He bent down in front of her. "It's a shock, I know. It always is."

She looked up at him. "Promise me I'll get home. Please." 

"Always." He shook his head. "Whoever it was that attacked you placed you in those sewers precisely because we were there. We'll find them."

"And how are you supposed to do that? They left me, I never saw their face--"

"Just because you didn't see them doesn't mean we won't be able to find them."

"I think it was a woman." It had only just now occurred to her, but it seemed important. "The voice didn't seem deep enough to be a man's."

He frowned. "A woman? You're sure?" At her slow nod the look on his face twisted into something approaching irritation, as if he were unhappy about it. "So a woman who entered a locked hut, left no footprints, attacked you without any problem... you really need to learn self-defense if someone can take you down that easily, no wonder Earth is invaded all the time--"

It was such a clinical way of describing the attack that it only served to raise Beth's sense of irritation again, and when he added disdain into the mix it made her want to simultaneously slap him and start crying. She chose the former, refusing to allow anyone see her lose control, and the sound of her palm across his cheek was startlingly loud in the silence. 

The force of her slap caused him to fall backwards against the glass wall of the quarantine chamber, and for a long moment they merely stared at each other in startled quiet. For a moment Beth was sure he was going to react badly, but he surprised her-- rubbing the spot where her hand had connected, one corner of his mouth twitched ruefully. "Did it again, didn't I?" he asked her. "Being rude."

She gaped at him. "How do you not realize that?"

The rueful look shifted into something like amusement, but he didn't smile. "Inherent." Then he frowned, looking down at the floor. "Why are you wearing only one shoe?"

~/~/~/~/~

"Martha, give me the vortex manipulator," Jack ordered. He shrugged his jacket on as he made his way down the stairs, preparing to leave the Hub to take their guest back to Broadchurch. "We're on a tight schedule, don't have time to waste."

"What are you going to do to her, Jack?" Ellie demanded. "Are you going to make her forget?"

Jack nodded, slipping the little wristband on. "Less people know of this stuff the better." He didn't miss the way she un-tensed just a little bit at his reassurance, knowing that she would want things to go back to the way they had been for the past two years. It was easier to live when the person who hated you didn't want to have anything to do with your life, and Beth Latimer would have too many questions to allow her to leave Ellie alone.

"Where are they?" Gwen was pacing around the edge of the room, glaring at her feet. 

"Here," came Alec's voice and the door slid open to reveal him leading Beth into the room. She was half-hiding behind his taller figure, her eyes carefully trained on her feet and her face faintly tinted red with embarrassment. It had taken her a very long time to feel comfortable enough to climb to her feet and leave the quarantine section. It hadn't taken Martha long to look her over and pronounce that she only had a bruise on her head and a very slight concussion, which explained the headache. "Really, Jack? Space-hopping?"

"Don't see any other way to get back to Broadchurch," Jack said with a shrug. "I don't see your ride here today."

Alec growled. "Wouldn't come. Temperamental right now. Who's going?"

"You and me, probably. I was thinking Gwen. Ellie, you're all right with watching the Hub with Martha for a couple hours, right?"

"Yeah, we'll be fine."

"Good."

"Wait, Jack!" The sudden urgency in Alec's voice stopped the captain from starting to program the coordinates into the vortex manipulator. "Think about it," he said when Jack opened his mouth to protest. "A person broke into a random hut in a random seaside town, attacked Beth, and took her here to Cardiff, exactly where we would be chasing aliens."

Understanding suddenly flitted across Jack's expression. "Too much coincidence," he said softly. 

"Exactly. And this person also just happened to know that you would be there. And if this person happens to be well-informed, as they appear to be, then they'll know that you have that vortex manipulator." Alec reached out a hand. "Hand it over."

"Wait wait wait!" Gwen said, starting forward. "What the hell are you doing, Alec? You've just painted this whole scenario as a trap!"

"Yeah, I did. Ellie, come here. Beth, hold on." His attention was on fitting the vortex manipulator on his own wrist and flipping open the protective covering. "Ah, see? Coordinates I don't recognize. So clearly they've been set to take us someplace I'd guess we don't want to go. C'mon, Ellie, come here."

"I really don't want to this time," she said with crossed arms. "If this is a trap, what can you expect to do?" But she did as he said, walking over and grasping his wrist above the vortex manipulator; on his other side, Beth tried to ignore her.

"Spring it, of course," he answered smoothly. "Only way we'll be able to figure out what's going on is if we take the initiative in this. Jack, we'll be back shortly. If not, take action nine."

He didn't wait for an affirmative, didn't even say a farewell to the rest of Torchwood; the vortex manipulator activated and thrust them through time and space and spit them out on the other side-- wherever that side was.

Picking herself up from the ground where she had fallen after landing, Ellie looked around to find they had landed in a dimly-lit hallway.

A hallway full of black-garbed, masked men who leveled their guns at the three of them.

Exasperated, Ellie rolled her eyes and lifted her hands as she turned to look at him. "Seriously? This isn't taking the initiative-- this is you being too curious for your own good."


	4. Chapter 4

"Stupid, irresponsible, ignorant wanker--"

"Stop wittering, Miller." Half amused and half annoyed by her nonstop mutterings, Alec looked over his shoulder at her. Flanked by two large guards she was practically dwarfed standing in between their heights. "Just don't fight back and we should be fine."

"Should be," Ellie scoffed, glaring at him. "You're shit when it comes to platitudes."

"Wasn't trying to be reassuring."

"Stop your talking," one of the guards at Alec's side barked, annoyed by their constant bantering and bickering. Ellie hadn't stopped calling him out for his actions since they'd found themselves in the hallway except to pause for breath, and she had steadily grown to using more creative swearing the farther along they went. Beth was openly staring at her as if she'd never laid eyes on her before. "The boss doesn't like meaningless chatter."

The guards were brutish and outnumbered the three of them twice over. Ellie quieted with another dark glower that she aimed at them, which only deepened the severity of the situation. In both Alec and Beth's experience, when Ellie Miller was quiet then it was bad.

They looked to be in a base of some kind, an expanse of sleek hallways and rounded curves. Not a spaceship, but not human either. None of them were even sure they were still on Earth. 

"Not a word until you're spoken to," the same guard as before told them. They were in front of a large white door which slid open silently.

It was a woman they were led to, much to Ellie's confusion; a tall, thin woman dressed in old Victorian-style clothing with her black hair elaborately done up. Narrow, ice blue eyes gleamed with a cunning that immediately sent a shiver of danger down her spine. At the woman's silent command Ellie and Beth were held back in the shadows as the guards led Alec to the steps where she waited.

There was a mix of interest and-- what Ellie thought was-- revulsion, like she didn't want to step too closely to him. The woman looked him up and down as she descended the steps, her heels clicking hollowly on the floor. Alec, for his part, kept his attention trained very carefully on his shoes and making no attempt to move. When the woman had completed a circle around him she stopped so that she faced him. Her smile was thin and entirely too pleased.

"Not the Doctor, then," she said. "But you look like him, at any rate-- at least what he looked like, forgive me. All those regenerations, you can hardly keep track!" She laughed like a child on Christmas morning, and the shiver down Ellie's spine only worsened. "But you--" and suddenly she was deadly serious, "you're _wrong_. You look like the Doctor but you smell human. So who are you?"

"A human," he retorted. 

More amused by the answer than annoyed, the woman smiled again. "Ooh, Scottish again! You've got a mouth on you; I'd forgotten how much fire this regeneration had."

"I'm not the Doctor."

Her smile widened. "Of course not, that much is obvious. So... Time Lord-human hybrid mix, then? Oh, or maybe an Instantaneous Biological Metacrisis, perhaps?" She clicked her tongue mockingly, her expression turning coy. "Naughty, naughty Doctor, which of his companions did he corrupt?"

"One you didn't meet, _Master_." Alec looked up to meet her gaze now, the pointed jab clear even to Beth.

And for a moment the woman looked taken aback, surprised by this turn of events. "Well. Clearly you're up to date on faces, so I suppose you're not completely stupid." She turned away suddenly, humming something quietly under her breath. She mounted the steps again before she turned and stretched out her arms. "And it's Missy now, thank you very much, Scotty. I stole what regeneration energy I needed from Gallifrey and here I am! Missy, ready to take over the world in _style_."

"I wouldn't call that stylish."

She barked a laugh. "I'm not sure you can talk about stylish, Scotty. The Doctor has never had much sense about fashion. Even his latest regeneration, he's willing to run around in his pajamas." She bent down towards him, her nose wrinkling. "And you, dressed in such plain attire. At least your creator shook it up a bit with Converse, and my my my, you really are repulsive, did you know that? I can hardly stand the stench of you." Her gaze abruptly snapped to Ellie and Beth, her blue eyes flashing. "Earth girls," she said spitefully. "You do like them a lot, don't you? Just another thing you've picked up from the Doctor, I suppose. So I guess the only thing I've got to ask now is which one you wouldn't mind watching me kill first."

Beth stiffened where she stood, pale and frightened beyond fainting; even Ellie's stomach clenched when he didn't immediately reply. "Go ahead," he said after a long moment, his attention back on the floor. 

The answer intrigued Missy even as her hand lifted a black remote-looking device. "Pardon?" she asked. "I didn't quite catch that."

"I said go ahead."

There was clear calculation in Missy's eyes as she turned slowly away from the two women and faced him again. "Don't tell me you've lost that fighting spirit," she taunted him. "What happened to all that lovely 'I'll always do what's right' bragging? Hmm? Did you lose something important in that Metacrisis?"

"They don't know who you are, Missy." Alec's voice was low, careful. Ellie untensed ever so slightly. He was testing out the ground, checking for landmines. He wasn't giving them up. "You might as well go on and kill them now-- they're never going to understand anyway."

Missy's expression brightened. "Well now," she purred in true appreciation, "here's something I never expected. You're right, of course-- worthless apes like this will never understand. But you're playing your own little game, aren't you, Scotty? I think I like you." She gestured to the guards holding Ellie and Beth. "Take the snacks to the holding cells. I'm going to have a guessing game with this one for now."

The men hauled the women around, pushing them out of the main room and back into the hallways. As the door slid shut Ellie looked back to find that Alec was doing the same, his expression a mix of apprehension and reassurance. 

"Ellie--"

The guard holding Beth shook her roughly, stopping her short. "No talkin'," he snapped warningly. 

Despite the two years' animosity between them, Ellie still felt her blood boil seeing her former friend used such. "Maybe if you stopped threatening us we'd do like you said!" she exclaimed. The response earned her a cuff on the side of her head. 

The rooms they were led to were dimly lit but large. There were no windows, no seams in the walls, and when the door closed behind them after they were shoved through they couldn't even see where the doorway had been. Definitely a prison, Ellie thought to herself, looking around carefully for any signs of possible escape. At first glance there were none but appearances could be deceiving as she knew all too well. 

"Master," she whispered, her heart sinking as Alec's explanations of the Doctor's past came to mind.

"Ellie, what the hell is going on?"

Beth's very calm voice broke through her musings, and Ellie cringed to herself. Danny's mum was quiet when she was at her angriest, and calm was at exploding point. She didn't want to be stuck with her former friend here without means of escape but here she was. Sighing, she turned and faced the waiting mother. "Haven't the foggiest," she said truthfully. "I think Al- Hardy does, but that's the way he is. Doesn't let the rest of us know until it's already happened." Her tone was a mite bitter as much as she tried to hide it, but she wasn't wrong; he had kept silent about a lot of things during Danny's case, most important of which his suspicions of the murderer.

Beth noticed her near-slip calling him by his first name, but it only incensed her further. She had already heard Ellie call him by name several times at the Torchwood Hub so she didn't know why she was trying to hide the first-name basis now. "That's your excuse for everything now, isn't it? Not knowing."

_How could you not know?_

"You're going to start that here, Beth? Really? I don't know about you but I don't think we have the time for this!"

"Seems to me we have plenty of time!" Beth shouted, advancing with her hands tightly balled into fists. Ellie stood her ground. "We're prisoners here until God knows when, there's aliens and- and time travel, and you and Hardy... That woman is going to kill us! What have you joined, Ellie, some kind of satanic cult or somethin'?"

Ellie shook her head. "No. It's a lot worse than that." She remembered her own period of freak out after she had found out about this world of time travel and aliens, and despite Beth's coherency she knew that she was still trying to process everything. 

Beth gaped at her, thrown by the answer. "How could it be worse--?" she started to demand.

And then the door slid open again and two of the guards shoved Alec through. Beth stayd where she was, but Ellie rushed forward sensing that something was wrong. He was reaching blindly for the wall, his face screwed up in pain as his opposite hand dug at his temple."Alec! Alec, what did she do to you?"

He hit the wall and immediately slid down to the floor, shaking, both of his hands now grabbing at his hair. He flinched from Ellie's touch as she steadied him. "Telepathy," he managed to choke out after a moment. "Memory overload--"

Oh. Ellie recalled that a similar thing had happened to him shortly after the Doctor had given him his memories of his eleventh and twelfth selves; but the Time Lord had been gentle about it and the reactions from the telepathy hadn't been so severe. She did remember one evening, though, when he'd been temporarily overwhelmed by a memory and she'd needed to improvise to snap him out of it.

Hoping it would help this time as well, she grabbed hold of his lapels and kissed him hard. She felt him stiffen against her in surprise, but after a moment he responded by grabbing hold of her wrists and dragging her even closer. When they finally broke apart he looked dazed but no longer in pain. 

"Better?" she asked with a lopsided grin. 

He nodded. "Better," he breathed, and then he was pulling her in for another kiss.

"Ellie..."

Beth's voice broke them apart. Ellie flushed, realizing too late that the young mother had no idea about how much her relationship with Alec had changed over the past two years; but as she tried to sit up, Alec's arms slipped around her so she couldn't back away. Ellie rolled her eyes and lightly slapped him on the chest. "You're really nothing but a nuisance, did you know that?" she muttered. She felt more than heard his amused grunt as she twisted to look around at Beth. "Sorry, Beth--"

"No, you're not," Alec said, disgruntled.

"No, I'm not," she agreed reluctantly. "It's-- difficult to explain, Beth," she said, in reponse to her current situation as much as the questions Beth had asked only minutes before. "I'm sorry."

"I knew something was going on!" Beth exclaimed. "All those times seeing him walking across the field to your house, I knew it! Has it been goin' on for the past two years, then? Even during Danny's case?"

Ellie frowned. "Two years?" she repeated, taken aback. "But I thought it was closer to three!"

"Time travel, Miller," Alec explained quietly. "We've been going on our trips a bit longer than you'd originally supposed."

"So... the Tar-"

"No!" He nearly dislodged her as he glared in warning at her. "Not a word about the wee one here. If the Master knows anything about her we'll never get out of here."

"Who is the- the Master?" Beth demanded. "What is she to you?"

The question somehow struck him as funny, and he started to laugh. "She," he repeated. "The bloody Master is a woman-- ow!" 

Ellie glared at him, unapologetic. "Answer Beth's question already."

"Fine." Her slapping him seemed to have chased away his amusement; he thought about his answer for a long moment before he finally straightened again and looked at Beth. "Missy is nothing to me. Really, I couldn't care less about her. But she has a long and complicated past with the Doctor."

"Who is?" Beth demanded impatiently.

Ellie entertained herself with all of the possibilities he could say to explain that question. "My-- dad, if you want to think, I guess," he said slowly. "Or the original, if you're feeling vindictive." When Beth only stared at him, he sighed and leaned back against the wall. "The Doctor is part of a race of people known as Time Lords-- as a Time Lord he has the ability to regenerate, he can change his physical body to cheat death. In his tenth regeneration he had his hand cut off. And Captain Harkness found that hand later, gave it to the Doctor. The Doctor had an accident, he was regenerating, he siphoned off the excess energy into that hand so he didn't change. Then later one of the Doctor's human friends touched the hand and here we are. Instantaneous Biological Metacrisis."

Beth gaped at him. "I... but--"

"For god's sake, I liked you, Beth!" he complained irritably. "Human beings, with all of your intelligence you really are just stupid apes--"

"Rude again!" Ellie admonished him. "Why did I get stuck with the rude one?"

"Because you wouldn't like me otherwise," he retorted, barely giving her a glance. "The Master grew up with the Doctor but he was always more violent, more prone to wanting to command others. They eventually grew to be enemies. I'd thought the Master was gone. Gone for years. Should've known we wouldn't be that lucky."

Beth inched closer, curiosity temporarily overriding her fear. "So what was happening when you came in? Telepathy, you said."

"In simplest terms, yes. Time Lords are touch-telepaths. I have just enough of the Doctor in me to make it easier for- ah, _mental sharing_. Missy showed me about two hundred years' worth of memories."

Now she looked horrified. "But couldn't that kill you?"

He shrugged. "Already have about two thousand years' worth of memories in my head, Beth. What's a couple hundred more? She just wasn't gentle about it."

Ellie frowned. "But couldn't that be considered some kind of rape? Like-- I dunno, mind rape or something?"

Alec grimaced. "Technically, no, since I did ask how she managed to escape Gallifrey." He pinched the bridge of his nose, then wearily ran a hand down his face.

When he remained silent, Ellie sat up. "So what happens now?" she asked. "What will Missy do?"

Deep in thought, he didn't immediately answer. "Dunno," he finally answered slowly. For a moment his accent slipped back into the Chiswick drawl he had inherited from Donna. "She doesn't seem as mercurial as before, but that doesn't make her any less dangerous."

"You told me the Master kept the Doctor prisoner for a year," Ellie remembered with a sinking heart.

"She wouldn't be so stupid as to use the same plan twice-- 'sides, she doesn't have the Arkangel Network this time to back her up." He shook his head. "No, she'll probably go back to her usual manipulations and entertainments."

"Which are?" Beth asked carefully.

"You don't want to know."

But something in Beth's expression hardened, a familiar look that Ellie recognized only too well. "I do want to know," she replied. "I don't want hope with this. Tell me straight out what will happen."

He was silent for another long moment, his mouth pressed in a long thin line as he looked at her. "She'll probably kill you both in front of me," he confessed quietly, "just to toy with me. Then she'll find the most painful way of ending my own life because I repulse her."

Beth whitened again, and even Ellie felt her stomach twist. 

"Why, Scotty," Missy's voice said from the doorway, "you downright astound me already." She sauntered into the room, carousal swinging on her arm as she stopped in front of her three prisoners. Her slow smile was frightening. "So which of them do you mind me killing first, then?"

Standing, Alec motioned her back and stepped in front of Beth. "How about we skip past all of the demanding and the pleading to stop and think and go straight into bargaining."

His reply interested Missy, who tilted her head curiously. "Bargaining, hmm?" she repeated. "And what do you have to bargain with?"

"Just me," he answered. "Specifically, the Doctor's mind."

Missy blinked. "Go on."

He shrugged. "You let them go. I'll stay behind, and you can do whatever you like." One eyebrow quirked upwards and he swayed slowly on his feet, his hands deep in his pockets. "Think about it, Missy," he cajoled her with a strange half-smile. "I'll build all the weapons you like. Do anything you want. I can make your plans impossible to defeat by anyone, even the Doctor."

Missy smirked. "Well, that does sound delightful. But there's just one problem I have with your idea, Scotty. I know the Doctor. You'd be too good to help me with world domination."

"Part human, remember? When aren't they corruptible?"

"Easily manipulated," Missy sneered mockingly, but there was still a greed shining in her eyes that Ellie did not like. She realized that Alec had just given the Time Lady the ultimate bargain-- and she would take it, because having control of even the slightest bit of the Doctor was a dream come true. "All right," she finally agreed. "But here is my part of the deal." She waved a vague hand in Beth and Ellie's direction. "Your two women will be freed but their minds will be wiped of this encounter and you will remain here. Any attempts to escape or undermine my orders will result in your slow and excruciating execution-- and only after I've rounded your friends back up and killed them in front of you." With another unsettling smile Missy held out her hand. "Do we have a deal, Scotty?"

Alec was still for a long moment, then slowly he nodded and grasped her hand in his own. "Deal."

"Alec!" Ellie exclaimed. She had never expected this, never, and the idea of leaving him behind, however willingly, in the hands of this madwoman was unbearable.

Missy's lip twisted. "Earth girls," she snorted disdainfully. "So sentimental." Turning smartly on her heel she glided back over to the door, practically dancing in her glee. "Have one more moment with them, then. Call it my gift." The door slid shut behind her. 

"Alec," Ellie whispered, walking around to face him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Improvising," he whispered back, and kissed her again. She felt him slid something into the inside pocket of her jacket as he pulled her closer but his eyes warned her to not ask about it. "Trust me, all right? Make sure Beth makes it home safely, and... make sure she remembers this, too."

"Why?" she demanded, confused.

"Timelines," he replied vaguely.

Beth was taken aback when he bent close to her after he let go of Ellie. To anyone observing-- or to any cameras hidden, she realized-- it would look like he was only giving her a quick peck on the cheek, but instead of that his breath tickled her ear as he murmured, "Listen to Ellie, whatever you do. Your life will depend on it."


	5. Chapter 5

"Beth? Beth!"

The voice trying to catch her attention echoed oddly as if she was at the end of a long tunnel. She wondered vaguely why whoever it was sounded so concerned-- surely she was only waking up slowly, pleasantly, on a lazy Saturday morning...

"Beth, please!"

Mark. The fear in his voice startled her awake faster than anything else could have, and with enormous effort she managed to open her eyes. Her vision was soft, unfocused; a blurry shape hovering above her slowly resolved into the fearful, wide-eyed face of her husband, who was cradling her face in his hands and still calling for her.

He practically sagged against her when he noticed she had woken. "Beth, my god, what happened? You've been gone for hours, you weren't answering your phone-- we were afraid--" His voice cracked with strain and she felt guilt squeeze her gut.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching up to grasp his fingers. "I-- must have had an accident. I think I've got a knot on the back of my head." There was something important, though, something lurking in the back of her thoughts, something that she needed to remember. She realized that she was lying in the grass of their front yard, her clothes grass-stained and smeared with dirt.

"C'mon, let's get you back into the house. Then we'll take you to the hospital for a check-up."

She didn't fight him as he helped her to her feet, nor did she protest as he led her to the bathroom and helped her undress. She felt shaky and still confused, and it felt nice to have him care for her. Their marriage was still shaky even after all this time; they fought and bickered, and she always wondered vaguely if he would have another affair. But he had been attentive and loving to their daughter after she was born shortly after Joe Miller's sentencing, and now their two-year-old daughter was the glue that held the Latimer family together.

"I don't need a check-up, Mark, I'm fine. There wasn't even a cut, and you checked yourself!"

The shower had woken her up even more, including her stubbornness, and she didn't want to subject herself to anyone's minstrations. Seated at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, she glared up at Mark as he paced the kitchen in sheer frustration. "Beth, I would feel a lot better about this if you'd just make sure--"

"I don't need it! 'Sides, it's Sunday morning, the doctor isn't even going to be in--" She trailed off mid-sentence, her thoughts suddenly seeming to solidify as she repeated slowly, "The doctor..."

_The Doctor is part of a race of people known as Time Lords._

Stiffening where she sat, Beth felt like an electric jolt had just run down her back as she remembered. Shooting out her seat, she upended the chair with a loud clatter, and she grasped the table for balance. 

"Beth! What--?"

"Ellie," she muttered, forgetting Mark in her haste to reach the door. "Ellie, I've got to find Ellie..." She could remember: meeting Torchwood, ending up in Missy's path, Hardy's deal, the mind wipe. So how could she still recall it all? Had Missy's men not done their job properly? They had brought Beth back to Broadchurch-- did that mean that they had brought Ellie back here as well?

"Beth, you haven't spoken to Ellie in months--" Mark was growing more and more concerned for her as he rushed to reach her side. 

"I don't care," she said, halfway across the room already. "I have to see her."

He shouldered past her and barred the door. "I'm takin' you to the hospital," he told her firmly. "Don't you dare try to push past me, Beth! I just want to make sure you're all right."

"I'm fine, Mark, really! Just let me go and see Ellie."

"No."

"You--"

"Please, Beth."

The trembling in his voice made her pause and step back. It was a tone she hadn't heard since the days during Danny's murder investigation, and it made her irritation and stubbornness lessen. With a sigh, she backed down and turned back to the kitchen table. "Fine. Go and call them."

Eyeing her suspiciously, Mark didn't trust her sudden change of heart but he was unable to pass up the opportunity she was giving him. "Don't you dare try to go out the door," he ordered, and went into the living room to pick up his phone.

The front door was still within his line of sight from there, but Beth hadn't intended to leave through that. Acting quickly she flipped the lock on the kitchen window and flung it open. They had never put a screen in seeing as they never opened it, which worked in her favor now, but a much less limber person wouldn't have been able to climb up on the sink and slither their way through outside. She was still both small enough and flexible enough that it only took a few extra seconds to hit the grass below the window-- and then she was gone, sprinting across the field towards the Miller's house. 

"Beth!"

She felt like a teenager again, being caught sneaking outside to meet up with a boy. Ignoring Mark's shout she only pushed herself faster until she was out of breath and at the doorway of Ellie's home. "Ellie!" she shouted. "Ellie, open up! Ellie!"

The door opened, but it wasn't Ellie who opened it; rather, it was Tom's concerned face that answered. "She's in the back garden, Mrs. Latimer," he said carefully.

She didn't stop to ponder how he seemed to know why she was on his doorstep; without another word to him she hurried around the corner of their house and opened the gate into the overgrown garden at the back of the house.

Ellie was waiting for her. Cool-eyed and thin-lipped, she merely watched as Beth approached before she very deliberately turned away. "Go back, Beth," she said coldly.

The younger woman stopped in her tracks, still trying to catch her breath and abruptly hurt. "No. I-- needed to see if you were all right." It was only half a lie, but her need to understand what had happened overwhelmed her want to spit more venom in Ellie's direction. 

Her old friend's gaze called her out on her hypocrisy, but she didn't speak of it aloud. "Yes, and now you can see that I'm perfectly fine," she answered shortly, "so you can forgoet all about this and go home to Mark."

Beth's infamous temper began to rear its head again, unable to accept that Ellie would so blatantly brush her off like this. "No," she said again, "I'm not going to forget and go home to Mark. I'm not a child! You and Hardy dragged me into this world of aliens by making us meet Missy and now you want me to just forget?"

"You don't belong there, Beth! It was just bad luck that you ended up being the one knocked out and brought to Cardiff. You're back in Broadchurch, so now you need to go back to your life."

"Hardy didn't think so," Beth countered with triumph, cutting across another protest before Ellie could fully start one. "He didn't say so but you could tell by the way he acted. He suspects something, and I heard him tell you to make sure I remembered."

"Yeah, and I wish he wouldn't have!" 

The words erupted without warning, catching both of them off guard by the loathing behind them; Ellie's eyes were bright with tears and fury, her expression twisting as she turned to glare at Beth. "Two years ago my husband killed your son and I could understand why you asked me how I couldn't know. And you want to know something, you stupid cow? You've never asked me a question since that I haven't already asked myself! But I could ignore your hatred, and I could forget that we were close once when you kept your distance. But right now you're not my concern, and the longer you stand there and judge me the longer Alec is in Missy's hands! I would have gladly let them wipe this whole thing from your memory if it meant you would leave me alone."

Silence descended awkwardly between them. The wind rustled through one of the lilac bushes beside the shed. Standing suddenly embarrassed and uncertain, Beth blinked as Ellie's words registered. "I..." She couldn't form a sentence that would explain away what she had just heard, though, and she floundered. 

Ellie's expression cracked, and her lip trembled like she was going to cry. But then she seemed to rally and she turned around again, preparing to go into the shed. "Just go away."  
"You really going back for him?"

The quiet question made her pause even as her hand was pulling at the doorknob. For a long moment the older woman stood silently as she tried to think of a no-answer answer, wanting Beth to know nothing else of her new world, but finally she hung her head in defeat and sighed. "I can't leave him. Not with that-- madwoman. Alec's told me all about the Doctor's enemies and the Master's one of the worst of the lot. Who knows what she'll do to him..."

The note of anxiety she wasn't quite able to hide pricked at Beth's hardened heart. "And you really do care for him." This time it wasn't a question.

Ellie lowered her hand from the door. "I do," she admitted, and she turned back around to look her old friend in the eye. "It took me a long time. I was still struggling with Joe, his memory, his- his betrayal--" They both flinched at the reminder of Danny's murder. But she plowed on, trying to ignore the rip in her heart that had been caused by her husband. "There was nothing between us during Danny's case, Beth, and nothing even for months afterwards/ It was actually more Alec than me in the beginning, actually. Being so much like the Doctor is a struggle for him. The Doctor is such a lonely man-- and he continually seeks out friends for company, and he needs humanity to keep him grounded and not an arrogant bigot..."

"So the Doctor's real then, too?"

Ellie nodded. "Met him a few years ago now. Shortly after I discovered Alec's past myself, actually. He surrounds himself with us, with humans. But apparently with the man Alec was... well, born from, I guess..." She trailed off, troubled by the explanation. Most of it she'd learned in very rare quiet moments when Alec was willing to talk about it all; others she interpreted from his silences when her questions came up. "Shortly after the Metacrisis happened, Alec killed someone. Several someones, in fact. The Doctor banished him here with someone he hoped would settle him down-- but it didn't happen. Alec was abandoned and it drove him to be like he was during Danny's case. He needed human contact to stable himself and he didn't have it. And then the case happened, and I came along, and this whole bloody town, and he told me Danny's case is what made him really start caring again. And then Joe happened--"

"And he was there for you," Beth finished, starting to understand. 

"He couldn't help it," Ellie said with a rueful grin. "I'd gotten under his skin."

"Beth!"

Mark's distant shout made them both jump. Ellie seemed both exasperated and amused as she realized that Beth had given him the slip. "He's going to lock you in your room for the next year when he catches you."

"Only if he does," Beth retorted. She took a few steps forward. "Please, Ellie, I can remember so I want to see this through. Let me come with you. Let me help you get him out, 'cos you're right, he shouldn't be stuck with her any longer than he has to."

It was the memory of Missy's calculating eyes that made Ellie's stubbornness deflate. "All right. C'mon, I'll show you what we can do to make sure Mark doesn't find you."

Frowning, Beth followed her cautiously, wondering what could be in a shed that was so important. Ellie looked over at her with a suddenly mischievous smile before she swung the door open. Beth's jaw dropped.

Inside the shed was a large blue police box, its top very nearly scraping the ceiling. Ellie smiled and placed her hand on the front door. "Hello, little lady," she murmured gently. "Brought you a friend." She turned back to Beth. "This, Beth, is the Tardis. Time and Relative Dimension In Space. Alec's grown it from a piece of the Doctor's own Tardis that he gave us when we saw him. Hence why it looks like a police box. She's his baby." And she swung the doors of the Tardis open as she stepped inside.

Beth's jaw dropped. "That's... but it's--" Disbelieving she hurried over to the edge of the blue box, expecting to see more than there was, but of course she found the outside of the Tardis to be only a few feet wide in all directions. "It's bigger on the inside!" she breathed in wonder, and she took a hesitant step forward inside.

It was undeniably beautiful, a bright warm greenish-blue and white that reminded her of the ocean, accented by wide arching beams that were a deep granite grey. The floor was a mix of grating and clear glass that was so smooth that it looked like the surface of a lake. And it was huge, the space easily equal to the entirety of Beth's house. "It's gorgeous," she said.

"Isn't it?" Ellie agreed, leaning on the console in the middle of the room. "She's grown so much since the Doctor gave her to us. She wasn't there at the Hub, though-- she wasn't here when we needed to head to Cardiff, she likes to jump from place to place. It drives Alec to distraction sometimes, he says it's like playing hide and seek with an irresponsible teenager."

Beth laughed despite herself. "So what's the plan?"

"Tell Jack first. Give him the update. We'll need all the resources we can get to find out where Missy's hiding." She looked up at the console. "Let's impress our guest, yeah?"


	6. Chapter 6

"How are you doing, Ellie?"

Martha's quiet voice broke into her thoughts. Exhausted and falling asleep where she was sitting, she startled a little and breathed sharply through her nose. Looking up, she saw the young doctor standing above her gazing at her in concern and sympathy. Trying to muster a smile she nodded. "Fine." 

Martha raised her eyebrows, calling her out on the lie. "Really?"

"Doesn't matter," she said, trying to deflect the concern. "We have to keep searching."

It had been three weeks since she and Beth had found themselves back in Broadchurch, and there was still no clue as to where Missy was. As both Jack and Martha had pointed out it was possible she wasn't even on Earth, which Ellie had to agree was a strong possibility. It felt, she hated to think, similar to what it was like during Danny's murder investigation; trying to piece together the clues of what happened where, putting themselves into the shoes of the one responsible for the crime, and working from there. 

"It does matter, Ellie," Martha countered gently. "You've gone without sleep for at least three days now. Don't tell me you're not suffering from sleep deprivation."

She was, but she wasn't going to willingly admit that. She had gone without sleep for days before and she could do it again now. What coffee couldn't do then energy drinks could and she was keeping herself awake out of sheer stubbornness.

"I'm not going to be able to sleep until I know he's safe." 

The young doctor gave her a look, utterly unimpressed. "That's one of the most cliched things I have ever heard, you know that?"

Despite herself, Ellie had to grin again. "Yeah, I know."

She had taken a respite from their searching on the steps above the rebuilt Torchwood Hub, cradling a cup of tea between her hands to ward off the chill in the air. It was a beautiful night, one of those rare times that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the stars were stark against the backdrop of space. Ellie gazed up at them for a moment and then looked back at Martha.

"Any luck?"

"None so far." Martha shook her head, frustrated and worried herself. "But Jack's still poring over old files and the like to see if we can find out anything else about the Master. Any old hideouts or places that he liked to go to in the past."

"She," Ellie corrected automatically, finishing off her drink and grimacing-- it had gone lukewarm. 

"Well, the Master was a he when I met him," the young doctor countered darkly, "and I bet the gender change hasn't helped Missy's demeanor."

"Don't think so," Ellie agreed. "She's still insane." She met Martha's eye. "How are you doing?" she asked. "You've told me about the Year That Never Was. Realizing that the person responsible for it is still out there can't be easy for you."

Martha took a deep breath. It had been several years since she had had to walk the Earth to defeat the Master but there were horrors that she had witnessed then that she would never forget. There were murders she saw committed and crimes that had no names that she still had nightmares about, and she would never forget the Master's laughter, nor his maniacal eyes.

Nor could she ever forget the anguished howl that had escaped the Doctor when the Master died in his arms after it all ended. Jack rarely spoke about that year either but she knew he wouldn't forget it and that was why he was pushing to find Alec now.

"It's not," she admitted, sitting down beside Ellie. "And I know why Alec decided to do what he did-- he is very much like the Doctor in that he wants to save people-- but I just want to slap him. I don't know what Missy will do to him now."

"He'll convince her he doesn't have an ulterior plan. He's always been tight-lipped, you know that. He was that way as the Doctor, after all."

"Yes, but the Master was always the Doctor's weak spot. How do we know that Missy isn't Alec's now?"

"Because things have changed. He'll be the first one to tell you that he's not the Doctor-- he said as much to her. And when the Doctor came across the Master that last time, during Saxon's time as Prime Minister, he was the last of the Time Lords, he thought Gallifrey was gone for good. But we know now that Gallifrey is still out there, and anyway Alec is part human. He has me."

Martha smiled softly, leaning her chin on her hand. "I'm glad. He needed you."

"Ellie?"

Beth's quiet voice broke into their conversation, and they both looked over to find their latest guest standing at the other end of the stairs. She had slipped into the strangeness of Torchwood with a little trouble to start with when she and Ellie first ended up in the Hub after boarding the Tardis, but she managed to find her feet soon enough. 

"Yeah?"

There was a still a certain stiffness to Beth's expression, and she didn't quite meet Ellie's eye. "Jack's had an idea he wants to run by you. I think he's figured out a way to find Hardy."

The news made her jump up like she'd been shocked, all exhaustion gone in an instant. Without another word to either of them she hurried past Beth and down to the hidden entrance. 

"Why did you come with Ellie?"

Martha's question made Beth pause as she turned to follow. She didn't quite know what to make of the young doctor-- she helped with Torchwood but she wasn't part of Jack's and Gwen's team, and she went to a normal everyday job to help with very normal everyday patients. But she knew of the Doctor, and she was familiar with both Alec and Ellie, which meant she was experienced in this world of aliens and technology.

She answered honestly. "Hardy saved our lives."

"That's enough for you, is it?" There was a wry twist to Martha's mouth as she met Beth's gaze. 

"He wasn't afraid. Taking us there, facing her, bargaining for us... he wasn't scared. And he should have been. Even Ellie... I've never been so frightened in my life, and I've never seen her so scared either. But he just seemed so in control of everything."

She was surprised when Martha laughed, a low, slightly bitter sound. Wearily she ran a hand through her black hair before she answered. "You know, I traveled with the Doctor once. Years ago now, back before Alec came along. And the one thing about him I learned when I was with him was that he always projects that calm control to fool his friends into thinking that things aren't so bad."

"I don't see how things could be worse than that," Beth muttered darkly, studiously ignoring the fact that she had suffered the worst pain any parent could face.

"Let me tell you something-- he was frightened when he bargained with Missy. I can promise you that. You've got to watch out for that, because right now he doesn't have anyone to help him. I knew Alec right when the Metacrisis happened, I saw him when he was every inch the Doctor. If you end up going to get him out, you've got to keep that in mind. He's been with Missy for a month."

"You don't think he'd actually help her, do you?"

Martha shook her head. "No. But if she reawakens that side of him, if she draws the Doctor out of his head, then you'll be dealing with a man who needs to be stopped from killing if driven too far."

~/~/~/~/~

"We found him! Oh my god, Beth, we found him!"

Ellie's excited exclamation woke her up several hours later. It was quiet in the Hub this early in the morning but Beth was used to a busy household. She had managed to make it home to Mark a week ago with a cover story in place, but after one night with him she headed back to the Hub to continue the search for Hardy. Blinking the gumminess out of her eyes she sat up where she had fallen asleep to find her old friend smiling wider than she'd seen her do in a very long time. 

It took a moment for the words to make sense but when they did she shot up where she was lying, her heart suddenly in her throat. "Where is he?"

"Still in this solar system. Jack had thought about it and he and Martha had agreed that Missy wouldn't travel too far from Earth due to her obsession with the Doctor, she would want to be where he would be most. She's got a hideaway in one of the planets on the other side of the Milky Way, she's stockpiling for her next plan."

"How'd you find that out?" Bent over pulling her shoes on, Beth paused when vertigo suddenly made her dizzy. She was feeling vaguely ill but since she hadn't yet thrown up she wasn't going to worry about it. 

"Jack's been around for a couple thousand years by now, Beth, he has contacts all over the universe. He called a few of them to give him information."

Together they hurried through the Hub and into the main room where both Martha and Gwen were already standing with Jack. Computer screens were all flashing with messages and other information that highlighted their importance. "What have we got, Jack?"

"Here." He pointed out a small area in the map of the galaxy he had brought up on one of the screens. "The Rigel colony. It's home base for a small band of Plasi who left their planet because of a supernova, but apparently Missy found them and took over. The bastard does love control."

"So what do we do to get there?" Gwen asked, standing with crossed arms and a flat expression. She had been with Rhys and her daughter for the past five days but had arrived as soon as she had heard the call from Jack, and it was clear that she was ready to go and do what needed to be done.

"Ellie?"

At Jack's cue, she picked up the vortex manipulator. "We really only need three people. The less we have the better, and Jack and I have already decided that he and I will be two of the three."

"How'd you get that?" Beth demanded, her attention still on the vortex manipulator which, last she had seen it, had been in Hardy's possession. 

"Alec slipped it into my pocket before we were taken out of the cell. Along with some anti-dubcon patches he's been developing. That's the reason why you and I remembered, Beth," she explained to the perplexed look the latter gave her. "And I know you weren't supposed to know, Jack, that he's been making them but they're a way to counteract a memory wipe. Makes it easier for the truth to slip back into the forefront of the mind, but only if the mind wants to remember it."

Stunned silence fell in the Hub and they were all staring at Ellie in open astonishment. Then: "How in the hell did he get away with that in here?" Jack blurted, utterly flabberghasted.

"Quite easily, apparently." Ellie shrugged, unapologetic, but went back to the matter at hand. "Beth?"

"What?" Unprepared for the abrupt shift in topic again she stared at her. 

"You'll be our number three. Martha has her job to go to, and Jack wants Gwen here to run the system backing us up with the computers. We need to be quick but quiet; first thing we need to do is find out where Missy is keeping Alec, then we'll need to make a distraction."

It wasn't until now that Beth realized what exactly it was that she was doing. Was she really voluntarily deciding to go back to that place and potentially face that madwoman? For a moment she was tempted to back down, to turn her back on all of this once again, but then she kicked herself; it still stood that she owed Alec Hardy her life, and she wasn't going to let that mean nothing.

"When are we going?"

~/~/~/~/~

"All right, here we go," Jack whispered. In the dim lighting of the hallway neither Ellie nor Beth could pick him out very well but they could hear the rustle of his jacket as he moved. The vortex manipulator had taken them precisely where they needed to be, but they had found themselves to be in a darkened corridor without any light source and they all scrambled to find some sort of equilibrium before they started on their way.

"No way of knowing where you are at the moment," Gwen's voice spoke up. She was monitoring them through Torchwood's cams, trying to give them a little bit of heads-up of what was coming. "I'm trying to hack into the systems but Missy must have some powerful tech, it's not making a dent."

"Time Lord technology," Jack muttered. "It's almost impossible to hack into. It took the Doctor over a year to navigate the Archangel Network, so I won't dock your pay if you can't get us a map of this place."

She snorted. "Like you pay me enough to do that now, Jack."

"Should we spilt up?" Ellie suggested.

Jack hesitated. "Dunno. We have no idea how big this place is, we don't have any type of advantage here. If we spilt up we may not be able to find each other easily again."  
"Yeah, but the three of us together makes it easier to catch us," Beth pointed out.

He frowned. "Good point. Gwen, keep on giving us heads-up about people coming. All right, Ellie, you head on down that corridor to the right, Beth and I will make our way opposite until we find another fork in the road. Remember the corners you took because we're meeting back here when we find Alec."

"Where do you think he is, Jack?" Beth asked him as they started off. 

"If he's a prisoner he'll be near Missy. But if Ellie's right and he's convinced her he can be trusted to a degree he'll have a bit of freedom. He'll be on his own most likely if that's happened, he always did like working alone." He looked over his shoulder at her. "Try to avoid confrontation when you can. Take the next left and make your way outwards, and listen to Gwen when she tells you what's coming."

It was frightening to be on her own in this place when Jack hurried onwards, but Beth focused on his directions and headed off to the left. She had been given lesson on how to shoot by the captain over the past few weeks, and she had one now, but it was set to stun and she luckily didn't use it; she did see three separate guards at times, though she managed to hide before they noticed her. There were doors upon doors on the way but Gwen luckily managed to warn her if there were multiple life forms inside before she went inside.

And then the lights flickered, bathing her in bright white, and she heard a familiar voice speak over a hidden com system. "Intruders on the sixth level stairwell, all units coordinate to apprehend them."

"That was Alec!" Gwen exclaimed.

"Well, that's our question about hidden cameras answered," Jack's voice commented wryly. "Don't worry, I've evaded them. I'm already on the eighth level of the building, he's delayed the order to send the guards looking."

"Does that mean he's still... you know, on our side?" Beth asked carefully. 

"Looks to be. Keep your guard up, though, and press forward."

It took a long time but finally she managed to find a stairwell leading to the upper levels herself, and she started the climb to the top, keeping in mind that there were more than likely cameras hidden along its length too. But she never heard a call and there were no signs of guards either, so she reached the third level easily enough. As soon as her foot hit the ground the lights flickered again, and then her earpiece crackled.

"Third door down to your left, Beth."

She jumped. "Hardy! What--" 

"I hacked Torchwood's systems years ago. Third door to your left. Now."

It was a simple white door similar to the cells that she and Ellie had been taken to the first time, but when it slid open she found it to be a large, well-lit room full of tables and technical equipment, a lab similar to Torchwood's own. Cautious, she carefully slipped inside and looked around for any potential dangers and finding none she relaxed just a hair. 

Hardy, she saw, was at the far end of the room hunched over a computer screen, and he didn't turn around. "Took your time," he said quietly. He sounded exhausted and irritable, his Scottish accent grating in the silence, but there was still something not quite right somehow about it that made her uneasy. He turned after a long moment to look at her, and there was something different to his eyes that only heightened her uneasiness.

Beth took a hesitant step forward. "What's happened to you?"

He grimaced. "She's been experimenting." The answer was flat, unemotional. She wondered if that was his way of coping. "Trying to extract all of the human DNA and replace it with a Time Lord's."

Beth edged closer. "Has it worked?" she asked warily.

He shook his head. "Not completely. Turns out humans are a lot more stubborn at the genetic level than anyone originally thought." He grimaced again, running a hand through his hair. "And I'm sorry, but she's been messing with my head, extracting memories, blocking others, so I'm a bit of a mess at the moment."

"Experimenting," Beth repeated, her stomach twisting. "She's a monster."

"What was your first clue?" he asked sarcastically, turning back to the table again.

"How long has Missy been... experimenting?"

He shrugged. "Since about the time you and Ellie were taken back to Broadchurch." He glanced over at her for a moment. "I don't feel like myself, Beth," he confessed quietly. "She's changed so much I don't feel human anymore." A humorless grin twitched at his mouth as he looked back down at the object he was currently building. "Never thought I'd feel terrible about that." He lifted it from the table carefully between his fingers. Beth looked at it warily.

"What is it?"

"Sonic probe," he answered vaguely. "Or a bomb. Works either way, I suppose, whatever mood you're in."

Beth looked at him in horror. "You're mad!"

"'Course I am. Can't have too many changes in your head before you're mad as a hatter. Although you'd need a hat to begin with--" Abruptly he broke off the sentence with a sharp intake of breath. A shudder seemed to run down his back and up again, and he shut his eyes in another grimace. When he opened them, they were normal again. "Sorry," he said, and by the tone of his voice she thought that maybe he was back to being the Alec Hardy that she and the rest of the Torchwood team were familiar with. "I try to keep that in check. Sometimes I can't."

"What was it?"

"The Doctor," he answered simply. "Or at least the bits of him that are in my head. I told you Missy's been experimenting, and that means mentally. She's trying to make me the Doctor. Hasn't quite managed it yet but he makes the occasional appearance." He looked around then as if he just realized that they were alone. "Where's Ellie?"

Beth stepped closer. "Coming. Is there any way to... fix you?"

"I'm hoping the wee one can. Otherwise, I don't know."

She really didn't like how disinterested he seemed about in all of this. He was talking about himself, after all. "Look, I don't know what's happened to you, I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here, but we'e come to get you _out_."

He shook his head. "Can't leave," he answered shortly, turning back around to face her-- and she drew back when she saw that he was aiming the device at her, his dark eyes suddenly deadly serious. "And I'm sorry, Beth," he said again, "but I'm afraid you can't either."


	7. Chapter 7

"You're two months pregnant, Beth," Alec explained, looking at her sadly. She sat tied to a chair still in the lab-like room, with him leaning casually against the desk still pointing the device pointed at her.

He did look sorry, she saw, but it made her no less furious. "And you're going to let my baby be put in danger?" she demanded, trying to shift away. The ill feeling that had plagued her in the mornings for the past few weeks made more sense now, as well as the fact that she had missed two cycles in a row. She wondered where Ellie and the captain were and she hoped that they would evade capture. "What happened to the DI who was trying to find the killer of my Danny?" The man she'd met then wouldn't have done any of this.

"I told you to do whatever Miller told you," he reminded her. "You didn't listen to her when she told you to stay in Broadchurch."

She paused at yanking at her bonds, frowning up at him. "How--?"

He leaned closer. "Telepathic link with my Tardis," he whispered. "I heard everything."

It was an unwelcome revelation. She shuddered despite herself, instinctively leaning away from him as she did so, and took a deep steadying breath. She met his gaze head-on. "What the hell has Missy done to you?" she demanded, straining against her bonds; it was no good. He'd tied them extremely well. He hadn't answered that particularly well yet but despite Missy's experiments she was determined to hear what it was that had so thoroughly scrambled his morals. "Is it really worth all of this?"

"Yes." The quick, calm reply was answer enough. "Missy has plans for your baby, Beth."

She froze hearing him, and then the mother lion-- the one that had roared its grief and fury at Danny's murder and scared anyone away who she felt was a danger to Lizzy-- rose with a suddenness that was both swift and viscous. "Don't you dare!"

"It doesn't look like you're in a position to say otherwise," he told her softly. "I'm not the one tied to a chair."

"I'll bite your fingers off," she hissed, and even she was startled by how furious she sounded. It wasn't an idle threat, though, and she hoped he realized that.

Rather than look even the faintest hint of unnerved, he merely lifted an eyebrow. "Seeing as how the human brain tells the body it can't bite through fingers I find that a bit hard to believe."

She made a low frustrated growl in the back of her throat, glaring up at him. "If this is what Ellie's had to put up with for the past two years I'm surprised she came back for you."

Now his expression cracked with a mix of anger and what she thought maybe looked like remorse. "Beth, don't try to fight this. Please. It'll go better for you all if you just do as she tells you."

"All of us," Beth scoffed. "And how do you know that the captain and Ellie will be caught at all?"

"Because I know them. Jack cares too much to willingly leave a teammate behind and Ellie is too attached to me to not follow him." For a long moment he merely looked at her, and then his mouth twisted and he straightened up as if he wanted to say something else-- and then the door slid open and he spun around on his heel as a familiar purple-garbed woman came into view. "Missy--"

"Greeting our guest properly, then, Scotty?" The Time Lady's tall frame seemed to tower over Beth as she approached, her pale eyes appraising them both, and then she smiled thinly. "Well done, pet. I was wondering where this one had gotten to since she wasn't with the others. They've been found and confined as well, of course."

Beth's heart seemed to plummet to her stomach. If that was true then there was no backup other than Gwen and maybe Martha, and even then it was possible that they would be caught as well if they attempted to come. For the foreseeable future they were at the mercy of Missy's whims.

And of Hardy's, it seemed.

"Have the snack here brought to the lab as soon as possible, Scotty, there's a good lad. I want to run tests on human compatibility now that I have them." She barely gave Beth a second glance as she headed towards the door again humming vaguely under her breath as she did so. 

"You know she'll kill Ellie."

It was a last-ditch effort on her part to break through to him, and she was viciously pleased to see that her words made him flinch. "Stop it."

"That was what you were most sure of a month ago, wasn't it? Well, congratulations, Detective Inspector, because that's exactly what you're going to get." Her voice was biting and bitter, her hands balling painfully into fists.

He'd managed to school himself enough that he didn't outwardly react to her accusation. "It won't be the first time."

"Yeah, Martha and Ellie told me about you killing somebody. Several somebody's. How do you even manage to look yourself in the mirror in the morning?"

"Easy." His eyes were flat and cold again as he cut her bonds, retied her wrists together and forced her to stand, the little sonic instrument pressed warningly against her spine as he made her walk to the door. His breath tickled the back of her neck as he spoke. "I never regretted killing them."

~/~/~/~/~

"This is freaking ridiculous," Jack complained as he paced. It was more boredom and anger guiding his steps than fear as he went around and around in a circle. He'd escaped from plenty of cells before in his two-thousand year existence but he'd never managed to escape from one of the Master's. If there was one thing the Year That Never Was had taught him it was the sheer ruthlessness and efficiency the Master possessed, equaled only by the Doctor himself; but where the latter used his intellect and abilities to aide others less fortunate, the Master manipulated and connived to place others under his sway and rule over them with an iron fist swathed in fear.

In other words, a cell built by the Master was made to be inescapable.

He had plenty of experience failing to escape from them.

"You're going to hurt yourself, Jack, calm down." Ellie had seated herself on one of the low-hanging benches that lined one edge of the smooth-walled, cold prison cell that they had been placed in after their capture; she watched him with an upraised brow and crossed arms, unimpressed.

"I'm healed up just fine, thank you." The gunshot wounds to his torso were completely fine, and if the bullet to his forehead still felt a bit tender she didn't need to know. His teeth were gritted together as he continued his trek. "I just can't believe I'm in this position again."

If there was a note of anxiety in his tone Ellie was kind enough not to mention it. "I'm worried about Beth. She wasn't with us and I couldn't reach her the last couple of times I tried. It's like she's just... disappeared."

"She'll be okay. The Master-- or Missy, whatever the hell he calls himself now-- will want leverage."

"Think she already had that," Ellie muttered darkly. "What will she do to Alec now? Will she... punish him, or will she just kill him?"

"C'mon, you know as well as I do that she won't give up any part of the Doctor willingly. She'd sooner get rid of all of us before she'd kill him."

"But you can't die, Jack."

"Didn't stop the Master from trying." Jack's voice was ugly and raw. "There were days when he killed me over and over again in a different way every time just to see if he could reach an end to my regenerative abilities."

Jack was like Martha in the sense that the Year That Never Was was rarely-- if ever--mentioned or talked about. Most of what Ellie knew of it was from Alec himself and even that had been like pulling teeth, but what she'd heard was more than enough. He'd been sparse with details, especially of what he remembered experiencing as the Doctor but he'd said that Jack had suffered horribly at the Master's hands and that Martha had spent a long, hard, terrible year travelling the Earth in order to defeat the renegade Time Lord.

Ellie winced hearing his words but couldn't find an appropriate response to them, and it was at that precise moment that the doors slid open and three armed guards came into view with weapons raised. "Back to the wall with you," one of them grunted at Jack, and although the latter glared at him hotly he did so without argument. Ellie knew as well as the captain did that this guard would quite gleefully shoot Jack full of holes again for the slightest reason. She very nearly said something herself that she would most likely regret but then the two other guards walked forward and unceremoniously dumped Beth on the floor.

Ellie sprang to her feet and bent to help the younger woman sit up; she felt Beth trembling beneath her touch. "What the hell did you do to her?!"

The lead guard smirked. It wasn't a pleasant look. "Maybe you should be asking the Mistress's pet that. We didn't harm a hair on her head."

Ellie froze as the doors slid shut again, taking a moment to really look at her old friend. One of the things Ellie had always admired about Beth was the latter's firecracker personality-- it was very hard to beat her down, and Danny's murder was proof of that. But right now she looked a mix of furious and frightened, and she met Ellie's gaze with a wide-eyed look that immediately sent a shiver of dread down her spine. "My god, Beth, we were worried sick about you, we didn't know where you'd gone. What did Missy do to you, are you hurt?"

Beth shook her head. "Missy didn't--" She swallowed past a dry throat, and Ellie noticed the imprints of some type of bonds on her wrists, and there was a bruise marking an injection site on her arm. "Missy didn't do this."

Apology. That was what was coloring Beth's anger and fear, and Ellie felt her stomach twist painfully. "Then who--?"

The young mother shook her head. " _Hardy_. Hardy did this."

~/~/~/~/~

"She didn't scream nearly as much as other humans I've met," Missy commented idly. "And I have certainly had my fun with them before."

"You couldn't have your fun with her yet," came the response, and she loved knowing how utterly predictable the Doctor's Metacrisis was. He was so much like his creator it was almost too funny at times, and although his still-mostly-human scent made her feel off at times it was worth it to see how far his corruption had come. 

He had fought her in the beginning. Oh, how he had fought her. It wouldn't have been any fun any other way, and if he hadn't shown some backbone and resistance to her she would most likely have killed him for being so boring. 

As the Master and during the Year That Never Was, Missy had sought only for the Doctor's ultimate humiliation and perhaps subsequent death. But with his Metacrisis there was so much more potential there and she was eager to explore the possibilities of finally having the smallest bit of the Doctor under her control, loyal only to her. 

She turned from the bloodwork that he had drawn. "Not yet," she agreed. "But I will in a few months' time. As the pregnancy continues we'll lay down the groundwork for manipulating the genetic code as the baby grows. By the eighth month it will be grown enough to take the serum." She turned to the computer screens that laid out the information of conflicting Time Lord and human genes and how they could be woven together. She hadn't figured out how to weave them together and then make them stay together but she was close to doing so, and Scotty was brilliant enough that he could keep up with her.

Looms would never be an option again when it came to Time Lord reproduction, but she was working with what she had. She had been almost disappointed that Scotty's little dark-haired Earth girl wasn't the one pregnant but she was resourceful.

"In eight months time," she said softly, "we'll have the start on a fresh race of Time Lords."

Time Lords manipulated and raised from the very species that the Doctor held so much appreciation for.

It was perfect.


End file.
